Trusting
by Rainstorm Amaya Arianrhod
Summary: Briar. He's never really fallen in love, nor does he care. But what happens when he finds someone who makes him care?


A/N: Here we go. Longer than usual, a Briar/OC oneshot. Sorry if anything's out of kilter. Just retireved from my email folder with many thanks to the beta-reader, ferretmenace. Cookies for you!

Disclaimer: Only Chiela and the truth jewellery are mine.

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At the beginning of their trip into the maze, they do not talk, but listen for other people, possible listeners- second nature to both ex-street-rat and slave. When they hear none, Briar begins a conversation.

"Are you coming, or not?" Briar asks for the umpteenth time as he watches Chiela's fingers trace runes built into the hedges of the ornamental maze that they have been working on together. They blaze with silver fire as her fingertips pass over them, a welcome light in the darkness of dusk. Briar scuffs his shoes against the earth, waiting for Chiela's answer.

Chiela straightens, to look him in the eye. "No."

"Are you _serious_?" Briar nearly screams. "You can be free! Isn't that what you want!"

"Yes," Chiela says. "Eventually. But I need to finish this. Then I will come back to Emelan, which sounds nice and warm... not cold, with treacherous things to vex us."

They are walking towards the centre. Both Briar and Chiela know it is the centre, because Chiela's words and runes are telling her so, and Briar's plants are making a perfect map in his mind. They only stop so that Chiela can check patches of the rune-script- change some, strengthen others.

"How is a maze important?" Briar enquires. Baffled: impatient. "Or the temperature?"

White teeth flash as Chiela grins, but her hazel eyes behind slightly crooked, wire-rimmed spectacles could not be more serious. "It's not just a maze. It's revenge." She has added the dimension to her voice that means only Briar and herself can hear what they say. A useful trick, part of a word-mage's typical arsenal of tips and tricks.

"Revenge how?" Briar is confused- not at Chiela wanting revenge, but at how a maze can possibly be that revenge. "I thought you were 'a perniciously carefully watched slave'."

"Even a 'perniciously carefully watched slave'," Chiela retorts, re-using her own words, "can come up with revenge if she has twelve years to do it in!"

"True," Briar concedes. "How does your revenge work?"

"When Berenene enters the maze at the opening ceremony –as she will, to test it, although of course, our dearest empress being our dearest empress, she will have a map- all of those sweet little runes for protection will suddenly turn this maze into the endless-labyrinth-from-hell for our dear mutual friend. It took a lot of work for me to make it so that anyone ...perhaps not _good_, but kind... will find their way to the centre and out again with perfect ease (unless they are unreasonbly stupid), but Berenene will stay in until the magic in this maze finds enough decency in her to justify freeing her. By which time I will be gone, either leaving outright or getting Berenene to free me beforehand- as reward, you know. If she tries to get out on her own, the heavens will break loose." Chiela grins sourly at her pun; 'Chiela' means 'heavenly' and she does not know why her long-dead mother named her that. (Suffice to say that Chiela has had a less than heavenly life.)

Briar purses his lips in a soundless whistle. "Now that's vind- vind-"

"Vindictive," Chiela supplies. "But no more worse than the lady herself."

Something fishy occurs to Briar. (Chiela can see it on his face, and smiles secretly. He just looks so funny.) "Why are you telling me this?"

Chiela stops, and sits on the fancy stone bench in the gravelled centre of the maze. It is her turn to screw her face up. Then she laughs. "D'you know, I think somewhere between fighting with you and explaining my secrets, I got to- to trust you."

"Trust me?" Briar sits beside her. "A street-rat?"

"Of course," Chiela says. "The colour of your skin or the class you were born in do not present obstacles to me- even if you do carry knives at every opportunity, which is a habit I will never be fully reconciled to. Then, your position here and your foster-siblings' is every bit as tenuous as mine." She looks Briar in the eyes for the third time. "Berenene is a snake."

"Do you trust the others?" Briar asks, storing up the information that Chiela has given him- deliberately, he realizes.

"Tris, yes," Chiela says. "She likes books and words too. Sandry... I could. I think. I have problems with nobles. Daja, I think so, but not here, because here she hears too much and says too little, and it makes me wonder whom she does talk to."

"You didn't say why you trusted me," Briar replies unthinkingly, processing what he has been told.

Chiela smiles at him, properly. It lights up her closed face better than her grins do, and Briar finds himself wondering when he will see Chiela again. Not in Namorn, that's for sure.

"Maybe I don't need a reason to trust you."

Some months later, a mage dressed in a dark orange tunic and breeches, a white shirt, brown boots and a light mandarin-collar jacket, wearing a pair of battered spectacles, walks up to number 6, Cheeseman Street, and knocks. The woman who opens it, a tall, dark-skinned blacksmith, is mildly surprised to note that the other mage, whose long black hair is in one plait down her back, is every bit as tall as she is. Faint recognition stirs in the blacksmith's mind; her mouth tries to form a name and her disbelieving mind stops her, believing that the name's owner is dead. The mage dressed in dark orange smiles happily at her. "Would you tell Briar Moss that Chiela Inkspell has finally made it here?"

"Chiela?" Daja (for it is her) gasps.

Chiela grins a grin full of mischief. "The very same."

Daja slips inside. "Wait here," she commands. "I know someone who'll be delighted to see you."

When a green-eyed, black-haired whirlwind comes rushing out and hugs her until she thinks dizzily that her ribs might well break, Chiela Inkspell can for once in her life do nothing but smile and laugh.

For she now knows why she can trust Briar Moss.

A year or so later, Tris Chandler knocks on the door of number 8, Cheeseman Street, and reflects on the changes in the past months.

Not much would be noticeable to the outward eye, except that the mages at number 6 had become marginally less chaotic and become a little more harmonious. Gossip had it that the young Namornese mage at number 8 had something to do with it. Tris, who saw a lot from behind those tinted spectacles, knew that gossip was right- and she wanted to talk to a certain mage about it.

Actually, Daja had first picked it up- the way Briar had stopped seeing so many different girls, the way Chiela persuaded him to smile and forget Gyongxe for a while, the way they talked. Daja had mentioned it later, quietly, to Sandry, and Sandry had observed and said that she thought there was basis for Daja's suspicions- namely, that Chiela was head-over-heels for Briar- and that, key point, Briar had fallen just as hard for her. (At that moment, Tris had told them that it was more than just a basis, and where had they put their eyes?)

"Coming!" The shout came from the back of the house.

Chiela opens the door and grins, happy to see her friend. "Hello, Tris!"

"Hello," Tris says, and then, "Mind if I come in?"

"Not at all," Chiela answers, and steps to one side, allowing Tris into the hall.

She takes Tris to her workroom, where a plain gold ring, simple drop earrings and a bracelet of the same metal lie on the workbench. A candle is lit beside them and a hot etching tool is propped against the wall. Chiela blows the candle out and offers Tris a seat.

"What are you working on?" Tris asks, by way of diversion.

Chiela sits, and replies: "Truth-tellers for Sandry, when she's sitting in the courts." She shakes her head. "Master Goldeye-"

"I'm sure he's told you a hundred times to call him Niko!" Tris interrupts crossly.

"Master Goldeye," Chiela continues, smiling, "seems to be getting itchy feet again. Sandry needs a way to tell truth."

"Did I call at a bad moment?" Tris queries.

"Oh, no. It's never a bad moment, really. That's the thing about being a wordmage- they stop. They pause. They don't need instant attention, so long as you can hold them in your mind..." Chiela trails off, her eyes looking into the distance. Then she straightens suddenly, her hands in her lap, and smiles again at Tris. "Now tell me what you really want."

Tris starts considerably, and Chime leaves her shoulder, swooping around the room and chittering in surprise. Eventually, she comes to a stop and perches on a shelf. Tris looks at the ground, feeling rather less than six years old.

Finally, she decides to be as blunt as she's been with so many others, and says:

"Are you, or are you not, head-over-heels for Briar?"

It is Chiela's turn to start. Her cheeks go pink and she looks at her hands, twisting uncomfortably in her lap. For a word-mage, there is surprisingly little volume in what she says next: "Yes."

"You do know," Tris says cautiously, "how Briar used to- well, be?"

"An inveterate womaniser, you mean," Chiela answers calmly, looking up at Tris. In the steady eyes, Tris sees trust- and several things she does not understand.

"Well, yes," Tris affirms. She can't remember having been made so uncomfortable by someone- except possibly Niko.

"I know," Chiela tells her. "And I held back until recently, because I knew that, and I wouldn't ask him to change unless it was his own choice. But there's something that's altered very slightly since then- do you know what it is, Tris?"

Tris thinks- it is not a question that has been put to her before –and slowly comes up with an answer- and an answer that makes enough sense, coming from an ex-slave-girl. She looks into Chiela's eyes again- they dance in the knowledge that Tris has guessed.

The answer comes out of Tris's mouth more hesitantly than anything she has ver said before. "Is- is it that you –trust him?"

"You are absolutely right," Chiela informs her. "I trust him more than I could have believed I ever would. I would trust him with myself any time, heart and soul."


End file.
